It's common to want to able see and track the flight of an arrow that's been shot into motion. For example, this can be highly desirable for bow-hunters wanting to be able to track and retrieve a shot arrow. This can also be highly desirable when filming a bow-hunt (e.g., for later viewing by an audience) or an archery practice session (e.g., for diagnosing errors and improving technique), in which it's common for the cameraman to stand behind the arrow shooter to film the arrow's flight-path. And this can be the case for any type of arrow, including bow-shot arrows and crossbow-shot bolts. But in these and other situations the arrow-tracker (e.g., an arrow-shooting person, a camera, or an observing person) is generally in-line with the arrow flight. This is because persons other than the shooter typically stand behind the shooter for safety, to avoid distracting the shooter, and to avoid drawing the attention of the target when hunting. But when the arrow-tracker is generally in-line with the arrow flight, this tends to make it difficult to track the flight of the arrow. This is particularly problematic in low-light conditions, such as when outside during morning and evening twilight, around dawn and dusk, or at night, or when inside (e.g., at a practice range or indoor competition) with little (or no) artificial or natural lighting.
In order to see and track the flight of an arrow that has been shot into motion in low-light conditions, some companies have created nocks with internal electric lights. Nocks are the structures located at rear tip of the arrow shaft, include a slot for receiving the bowstring, and are typically made of a hard plastic material. Known electric-light nocks each include a light-emitting diode (LED) electric light, a battery for electrically powering the light, and an internal control switch for manually or automatically turning on and off the power to the light. In some manual designs, for example, the internal control switch is triggered to turn the light on and off upon manually passing a magnet nearby it. And in some automatic designs, for example, the internal control switch is automatically triggered by the launch force to turn on the light when the arrow is shot, then is automatically reset after a pre-determined time to turn the light back off. In some designs, these nocks have electric lights that illuminate constantly, and in other designs they blink.
While these electric-light nocks have proven at least somewhat useful for visually tracking the flight of an arrow at night or in other low-light conditions, they have their drawbacks. In particular, because they are battery powered, they have a limited life (e.g., typically about forty hours) and therefore must be frequently replaced. And due to the frequent replacements required, the overall cost of using them tends to be relatively high. Moreover, these electric-light nocks are not recognized by the two most prestigious record books in the hunting industry, Pope and Young, and Boone and Crockett, and are not legal in many states.
Thus it can be seen that needs exist for improvements to arrows and/or arrow components to provide affordable enhanced-visibility illumination features for tracking the arrows in low-light conditions. It is to such improvements that the present invention is primarily directed.